‘Indeed, yes,’ cried Phil eagerly; ‘and do you really think nobody else need know what an ass I’ve been?’ ‘If you don’t betray yourself,’ said Miss Marjory, ‘nobody else will betray you.’ Phil drew a long breath of satisfaction. ‘Oh, jolly!’ he cried in his boyish way; ‘and won’t my uncle and aunt be sold! They’ll think I knew all the time that Tor was here, and that I was in the plot. I hope they will feel properly “done.”’ ‘You must be bold and firm with them,’ said Miss Marjory; ‘you must stand up for every measure your friend has taken. You must say that everything he did has your complete sanction.’ ‘Of course I shall.’ ‘And they can easily be made to believe that you were aware the whole time of your friend’s movements.’ ‘And they shall think so too!’ cried Phil eagerly; ‘and if they try to cast in my teeth what that old Pagliadini said, I will lay it hot on him!’ ‘I think you will enjoy abusing the Signor,’ remarked Maud, smiling. ‘That I shall,’ cried Phil. ‘I abuse him to myself every time I think of him.’ ‘Well,’ said Tor, bringing matters round to the point from which they had strayed, ‘is it agreed that we call together at Thornton House to-day?’ ‘It is,’ said Phil. At Thornton House that day a somewhat animated interview was taking place between Mrs. Belassis and her husband. It will doubtless be remembered that it was only upon the previous afternoon Mrs. Belassis had made an attack upon Tor at Ladywell, and had heard from Miss Marjory the disgraceful story of her husband’s first marriage, and his subsequent desertion of his young wife. She had appeared to take the news quietly, for she had not been able, in her excitement and indignation against Tor, to consider with calmness her own possible position; and she had, at the moment, felt convinced that the first wife must have died, and that he must have known of her death before he had dared to marry again; but when she began to review the subject dispassionately, a great fear fell upon her that this might not be so, and a hundred little forgotten incidents rose up before her, all tending to increase her doubts. Her husband’s eagerness to engage himself to her, and his constant postponement of the wedding, looked significant enough to her now. His ill-assured manner all through the marriage day and later, and his wish not to advertise the ceremony, came back to her memory now and made her tremble. Then his fear and anxiety when Whitbury was named were certainly strange, as was also his craven and cowed air when he had met Miss Marjory. It was possible, of course, that he might be cowed and timid, in any case, at meeting one who could reveal the fact of the first marriage; but all seemed to point to the conclusion that he had never really ascertained the fate of the woman he had wedded only to desert. Mrs. Belassis could not speak to her husband on her return, for he had started upon a business expedition from which he was not expected home until the following day.